Today’s Big Story

The End of the Trail

Trump and Harris crisscross campaign trail in the final hours before Election Day

Can you see the finish line? Americans have just one day left to pick their new leader in a neck-and-neck presidential election likely decided by tens of thousands of votes in just a handful of swing states. Have you voted already? Because as of this morning, more than 76 million mail-in and early in-person votes have already been cast nationally.

But the candidates aren’t slowing down. They’re in the final stretch: Former President Donald Trump hit Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia on Sunday, while Vice President Harris focused on Black voters and young voters in Michigan. Her campaign has been projecting confidence and optimism in the closing days. “Make no mistake: We will win,” Harris said in East Lansing, home of Michigan State University. She also made a surprise appearance on SNL, joking about ending all this “dramala”.

In his remarks in Pennsylvania, Trump suggested he “shouldn’t have left” the White House after his election loss in 2020 and told a crowd, “the day I take the oath in office the migrant invasion ends—I will rescue every city and town that has been invaded and conquered.” Many people in the country illegally, he said without evidence, are murderers and terrorists. And he said they were taking away jobs, mostly from Black Americans. Before criticizing Vice President Kamala Harris’ record on immigration, Trump said she is “running on nothing but hate and demonization.”

One thing is clear, though. This is a very, very close race. And while the two sides' closing messages are dramatically different, both have surrogates on TV claiming that they know that their side will be victorious. But in toss-up America, no one really knows. Final polls show a neck-and-neck race in key swing states, while one pollster created shockwaves with numbers that suggest seemingly solidly red Iowa could receive a blue makeover.

In these final days and hours, both candidates have been racing through rallies and impromptu appearances in the battleground states. According to the New York Times, Trump appeared particularly tired on Sunday morning; his voice was hoarse and his pace was slow as he delivered remarks marked by grievances and the occasional vulgarity. Harris, though, seemed markedly more upbeat at a rally Sunday night, telling a lively crowd that this is “one of the most consequential elections of our lifetime, and we have momentum. It is on our side.”

Israeli Airstrikes Continue

But Netanyahu in the center of a storm over Gaza hostages after arrests linked to alleged leak

Israeli airstrikes killed at least 31 people in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, Palestinian medics said, with nearly half of the deaths in northern areas where the army has waged a month-long campaign it says is aimed at preventing Hamas from regrouping. Reuters reports that Palestinians said the new aerial and ground offensives and forced evacuations were “ethnic cleansing” aimed at emptying two northern Gaza towns and a refugee camp of their population in order to create buffer zones. Israel denies this, saying it is fighting Hamas militants who launch attacks from there.

The nearly month-long Israeli operation targeting Jabalya, Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun has worsened the desperate situation in Gaza’s north. And now, UNICEF’s executive director warned that those who remain in northern Gaza—especially children—are “at imminent risk of dying” from disease, famine and ongoing bombardments there. The World Health Organization reported an attack Saturday on a health-care center in Gaza City where a polio vaccination drive was taking place. At least six people, including four children, were injured, the WHO’s chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said, adding that the attack took place during a humanitarian pause that Israel agreed to.

Meanwhile, Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is at the center of a new political storm related to a hostage deal in the Gaza war after the arrest of several people in connection with an alleged leak of classified documents from his office. An Israeli court announced the arrests on Friday afternoon, before the beginning of Shabbat, saying that a joint investigation by the police, internal security services and the army suspected a “breach of national security caused by the unlawful provision of classified information”, which had also “harmed the achievement of Israel’s war aims.”

Back to Standard Time

Did you feel that “extra” hour?

Like it or not, we returned to standard time after that “fall back” move turning our collective clocks back an hour Sunday morning. For some, that meant you got an extra hour of sleep. For some overnight workers, it meant having an hour tacked on to their shifts. Sunrise will now come an hour earlier; so will sunsets. The earliest sunsets of the year will happen during the next six weeks.

According to the Washington Post, the idea of daylight saving time has been around since 1784, when Benjamin Franklin proposed it as a joke. He had written a satirical letter to the editor of the Journal of Paris calculating the amount that Parisians could save on candles if they shifted their schedules during the wintertime. Germany implemented daylight saving time in 1916, and the United States did so in 1918. It was initially unpopular with farmers, because they had less time to harvest and prepare goods in the morning before markets opened.

Of course, the time change always brings around the topic of permanent daylight saving. In 2022, the Senate passed a bill called the Sunshine Protection Act, which would make daylight saving time permanent. The bill was backed by 17 bipartisan cosponsors, including Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who has long argued we should stop “falling back” in November and keep daylight saving time year round. But CBS News reports that time ran out on the House bill in 2023 after it was referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Subcommittee on Innovation, Data, and Commerce.

Look Up at the Stars This Month

It’s going to be quite the celestial show

The end of daylight saving time means an extra hour of evening stargazing, and November’s night-sky lineup has a host of ways to enjoy it. And to make it even easier, the darkest nights of the year are quickly approaching the Northern Hemisphere.

The Southern Taurids meteor shower is expected to reach its peak overnight tonight into Tuesday morning. A week later, the Northern Taurids are projected to peak from Nov. 11 to 12. Both showers tend to produce around five slow-moving meteors per hour—and more on days when the two overlap—under clear conditions and dark skies, according to the American Meteor Society. At the same time, the last of the Orionid meteor shower should still be visible, following its peak on Oct. 20. Orionid meteors appear to stream from the constellation of Orion and can be seen until Nov. 22, according to EarthSky, a website devoted to skywatching and astronomy.

And Popular Science says that November’s full moon will reach peak illumination on November 17 at 4:29 p.m. EST. This is also the final supermoon of 2024. According to the Farmer’s Almanac, November’s full moon is called the Beaver Moon in reference to the time of year when beavers begin to shelter in their lodges, after storing up food for the winter. This was also when beavers pelts are at their thickest.

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